The blistering sun of Arrakis shone overhead, creating few shadows around the monster and its confident rider. For this day’s antics, Selim was delighted that he had called up his largest sandworm yet.

Naib Dhartha would be terrified— or at the very least impressed. Perhaps Buddallah would smite the treacherous naib as punishment for what he had done to innocent Selim. Or perhaps the young man would be given the chance to take his own revenge, in his own way. In fact, Selim would have found that preferable. . . .

After more than a year of living by his own wiles, he was well-fed, healthy, and happy. God continued to smile on him. The rugged teenager consumed more melange than ever before.

Selim had established six additional supply outposts around the desert, making eight in all, including another abandoned botanical testing station he had discovered even farther from the settled mountains. He’d scavenged more material than he had ever dreamed possible, making him wealthy by the standards of his people.

At night he laughed alone at how Naib Dhartha and the other cliff-dwellers had thought they were punishing him with exile. Instead, Selim had been reborn out here in the desert. Buddallah had kept him safe, protected him. The sands had scoured him clean, making him a new person. Bold, resourceful, and defiant, he would become a legend among the desert nomads. Selim Wormrider!

But that could happen only if the Zensunni knew about him. Only then could he achieve the destiny he had in mind for himself, a man revered by his people. He would show them what he had become.

Selim goaded the mammoth worm back toward the old familiar mountains. After so much time alone, with no one to talk to but himself, he was returning to the only place he could truly call home, despite its deficiencies and challenges.

He made out cliffs ahead, lines of vertical rock like a fortress wall that blocked worms from the sheltered valleys beyond. The Zensunni Wanderers had built their homes in those caves, keeping the entrances secret from outside eyes. Selim knew the way.

Beneath the young man’s aching legs, the worm thrashed, reluctant to go closer to the rocks. Selim obliged by turning the beast, making it pass in front of the high cliffs.

Holding his metal staff, pressing hard so that the spread segments remained exposed, he stood high up on top, maintaining his balance. His dirty white cloak flapped in the wind. As the worm crossed before the honeycombed cave openings, he could see tiny figures appearing to gaze out at him in amazement. Worms never came so close to the rock walls, but he had guided this one in, like a monster across a vast ocean. He controlled it completely.

Selim saw more figures on the rocks and heard faint shouts, people summoning others. Soon, astonished Zensunni villagers stood all along the ledges. He enjoyed seeing their wide eyes and open mouths.

Selim drove the sandworm past them all, shouting into the wind and waving insolently. Using his goads and his stick, he forced the demon to turn about yet again, twisting its serpentine head and churning back in front of the cliff wall like a performing animal.

None of the audience waved to him, or moved much at all.

Showing off, Selim laughed and hooted, bellowing insults at evil Naib Dhartha and the traitorous Ebrahim. In his desert robe with a cloth wrapped over his face, Selim doubted anyone would guess who he was. Wouldn’t they be shocked to learn it was the supposed water thief, the scalawag exile?

It would have been more satisfying if Selim had shown them who he was and heard their gasps, but he would tease them for a while first, creating a legend. One day he would laugh at their disbelief, perhaps even approach close enough to invite Naib Dhartha along for a ride. He chuckled to himself.

When he had given them enough of a taste, Selim turned the worm back toward the desert. With a hissing rumble of friction, the sandworm rushed back out onto the open dunes. Selim laughed all the way, thanking Buddallah for such a joyous trick.

CROWDED WITH THE others on a ledge, Mahmad, the son of Naib Dhartha, stared in disbelief as the huge worm turned about like a faithful pet, then surged away, crossing the rippling sands. A single man had guided the creature, one small person who stood fearlessly atop the mounded ridges.

Unbelievable. My eyes have seen more than most Zensunni do in all their lives. And he was only twelve standard years old.

Mahmad heard eager boys chattering about how exciting it would be to ride a worm. Some attempted to guess the identity of the mad stranger who could command the desert demons. Other Zensunni refugees had founded villages and cave cities throughout the mountains of Arrakis, so it could have been a member of any tribe.

Mahmad looked up, his mouth full of questions, then saw his father standing beside him, his face set in stone. “What a fool,” Naib Dhartha growled. “Who could be so reckless and disdainful of his own life? That one deserves to be devoured by the beasts.”

“Yes, Father,” Mahmad agreed out of habit, but interesting possibilities surfaced in his mind.